Friendly and fab

Contemporary Asian fusion restaurant on Hope Street

To label Dragon-I a Chinese restaurant doesn’t really do it justice. Located on Hope Street, Dragon-I offers dishes influenced by Malaysian, Thai and Vietnamese cuisine, as well as the vast Chinese repertoire of cooking styles, and is best described as a contemporary Asian fusion restaurant. With a striking red and black colour scheme, its interior is as bold and memorable as the menu. Dragon-I is almost close enough to the Theatre Royal to hear the hush as the curtain goes up and the restaurant does a correspondingly brisk trade in pre and post theatre dinners.

Unique Asian cuisine

While offering a unique take on Asian food to Glasgow’s diners, Dragon-I’s dishes are not all hybrids of different culinary traditions. Sea bass steamed with fresh ginger, spring onion and soya sauce is a Chinese classic while the chilli seafood soup flavoured with lemongrass and shitake mushrooms will be familiar to fans of Thai food.

Other elements of Dragon-I’s menu are more boundary-blurring. A starter of crispy pancakes rolled with Stornoway black pudding and a Thai chilli sauce crosses several international frontiers while the Hong bun har, or tiger prawns gently simmered in a delicate champagne sauce and topped with fresh strawberries, belong in a classification all of their own.

Whether you stick to the more familiar Asian dishes or take a walk on Dragon-I’s wild side, there is nothing else like it in Glasgow.

Rail & bus links nearby

Situated at the top of Hope Street, Dragon-I is a short walk from Buchanan bus station and is not far from both Cowcaddens and Buchanan Street subway stations. With a host of shops on Sauchiehall Street and in Buchanan Galleries, as well as theatres and the cinema nearby, diners are not short of things to do before or after an unforgettable meal at Dragon-I.

Jhing Yu £15.90(Eatclean option available)Steamed sea bass on a bed of pak choi with fresh ginger and spring onion topped with soy sauce. This dish is exactly how our gran mothers would serve at home served with garlic butter rice